Ezekiel 19: 1 – 14
The one I loved is gone
1 “Moreover take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, 2 and say: ‘ What is your mother? A lioness: She lay down among the lions; among the young lions she nourished her cubs. 3 She brought up one of her cubs, and he became a young lion; He learned to catch prey, and he devoured men. 4 The nations also heard of him; He was trapped in their pit, and they brought him with chains to the land of Egypt. 5 ‘ When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost, She took another of her cubs and made him a young lion. 6 He roved among the lions, and became a young lion; He learned to catch prey; He devoured men. 7 He knew their desolate places, and laid waste their cities; The land with its fullness was desolated By the noise of his roaring. 8 Then the nations set against him from the provinces on every side, and spread their net over him; He was trapped in their pit. 9 They put him in a cage with chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him in nets, That his voice should no longer be heard on the mountains of Israel. 10 ‘ Your mother was like a vine in your bloodline, planted by the waters, Fruitful and full of branches Because of many waters. 11 She had strong branches for scepters of rulers. She towered in stature above the thick branches, and was seen in her height amid the dense foliage. 12 But she was plucked up in fury, She was cast down to the ground, And the east wind dried her fruit. Her strong branches were broken and withered; the fire consumed them. 13 And now she is planted in the wilderness, In a dry and thirsty land. 14 Fire has come out from a rod of her branches And devoured her fruit, So that she has no strong branch— a scepter for ruling.’” This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.
Our God is Amazing and Awesome. We have studied over the last eighteen chapters how the people of Israel had become so morally corrupt that the Lord had no other choice but to remove them from the land. The Canaanites were removed from the land because of their evil and now sadly God’s elect had become like the former inhabitants. Thus, it was justified that they also had to be dealt with.
Our Holy Creator and Ruler had used every means possible to break through their hearts and minds. He sent famines, pestilences, wars, and prophets to get the people’s attention to seek out God for His help. Nothing worked. The people had become so hardened that the only action now to be taken was for God to cast the people out of His land.
You have to take some time going through these chapters to feel the hurt of God’s Heart. Over and over you feel moved by the pain of a rejected lover. In dealing with divorce situation you carry the burden of a dead marriage. Here also we read and understand the sorrow of a dead marriage between our Holy Lord and His people the Jews. Our Lord’s heart is heavy and as we witness friends sharing their feelings of loss at a funeral, here in chapter 19 we hear from our God lamenting over his lost love.
In the preceding chapter we read how our Supreme Judge ruled on His basis of decisions. He would judge each person individually not corporately. He now focuses on the individuals who had a responsibility as His co-leaders to watch over His flock. These two princes of Israel were Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin.
Israel will be portrayed by God as a lioness, which produced cubs. Our Lord will lament over their fate and the resulting destruction of His choice nation through a poem of the withering vine that would end in the cessation of Jewish kingship.
1 “Moreover take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, 2 and say: ‘ What is your mother? A lioness: She lay down among the lions; among the young lions she nourished her cubs. 3 She brought up one of her cubs, and he became a young lion; He learned to catch prey, and he devoured men. 4
Our Lord loved king David. He made a promise to him that his sons would rule as kings over The Holy Lord’s people. The moral and spiritual decay had gotten so bad that we see our Lord not even refer to the two leaders as kings but only gives them credit for their heritage as ‘princes’.
Our Precious Lord in His overwhelming Grace bestows on His selected tribe Judah as the leadership tribe and gives these people the image of a lion, which is strong and powerful. Even today Israel is a strong army. In fact probably Israel is one of the most successful warlike group of people on the planet. I have dabbled in the martial arts and I can tell you that the Israeli self-defense is one of the finest in the world.
The first lion cub is Jehoahaz. “The nations also heard of him; He was trapped in their pit, and they brought him with chains to the land of Egypt.” Jehoahaz only reigned for three months before being carried off to Egypt by Pharaoh Necho where he eventually died.
2 Kings 23: 31 – 31 says, ”31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done. 33 Now Pharaoh Necho put him in prison at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and he imposed on the land a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.”
Jeremiah 22: 10 – 12 reports, “10 Weep not for the dead, nor bemoan him; Weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. 11 For thus says the LORD concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, who went from this place: “He shall not return here anymore, 12 but he shall die in the place where they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more.”
The key description here is not of Jehoahaz’s reign but the emphasis is about his military might. Zechariah 4: 6 says, ““6 So he answered and said to me: “ This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘ Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the LORD of hosts.”
Our Holy Supreme Commander was displaying to the Jewish captives in Babylon and to us that everything you think you can do or how tough you think you are is meaningless without God’s Support behind you. Look at our nation today, which has forsaken our Precious Loving Creator. We are getting pushed around by a bunch of cave dwellers.
5 ‘ When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost, She took another of her cubs and made him a young lion. 6 He roved among the lions, and became a young lion; He learned to catch prey; He devoured men. 7 He knew their desolate places, and laid waste their cities; The land with its fullness was desolated By the noise of his roaring. 8 Then the nations set against him from the provinces on every side, and spread their net over him; He was trapped in their pit. 9 They put him in a cage with chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him in nets, That his voice should no longer be heard on the mountains of Israel.”
‘ When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost.’ The nation of Judah had ‘waited’ for deliverance from God, yet none came. Have you ever experienced this? You waited for deliverance by God’s help, yet it never came? I can personally testify that I have experienced numerous times where my Holy Lord and Savior bailed me out of very difficult and dangerous situations. It seemed that He did not respond in some cases that I needed Him. Yet, I am still here. Why didn’t He come through for me in those situations? I do not know. Who does? I do know that He has come through for you and me much more than you can ever imagine. Perhaps the times we think He didn’t help us, we will find out in the future what really happened. The following poem ‘Footprints’ was used greatly by my Lord when I went through such difficult mind searching.
One night I had a dream--
I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord
and across the sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints,
one belonged to me and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that many times along the path of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest
and saddest times in my life.
This really bothered me and I questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,
you would walk with me all the way,
but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life
there is only one set of footprints.
"I don’t understand why in times when I needed you most,
you should leave me."
The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child,
I love you and I would never, never leave you
during your times of trial and suffering.
"When you saw only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."
...Mary Stevenson
A faithful and godly Pastor I look up to once shared this story with us relative to this point. In college he had met and fallen in love with this beautiful woman. He begged God to allow her to be his wife. It never happened. Some 40 years went by and after a service this lady approached him and asked him if he remembered her. He apologized for not remembering who she was. She finally let him know that she was the same woman that was close to him in the past. So, he sets us up and tells us what was the first thing that came into his thoughts after seeing her after all this time. His answer, ‘Thank you Lord for not answering my prayer.’
I find it interesting that the next king to succeed Jehoahaz was Jehoiakim, yet he is not the next king discussed by our Lord here in chapter 19. In the previous chapter we read about three generations of men. Our Lord’s point was that each person is responsible for his or her own lives before our Holy Judge. The first and third generations were recognized as good men who obeyed and followed God’s commands. The second-generation individual was wicked. Here, in chapter 19 the opposite is true. Two are evil and the middle kings was okay. Our Holy Yahweh allowed Johoiakim to reign for 11 years and was spared from the disaster that befell the other two kings. Therefore, the next lion cub spoken of was Jehoiachin.
“She took another of her cubs and made him a young lion. 6 He roved among the lions, and became a young lion; He learned to catch prey; He devoured men. 7 He knew their desolate places, and laid waste their cities; The land with its fullness was desolated By the noise of his roaring.” Taking the throne at the age of 18 we see our Lord spell out for us some of Jehoiachin’s military successes.
The usage of the terms lion, scepter, and vine is not new as we read in the book of Genesis chapter 49, ““9 Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him? 10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. 11 Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. 12 His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.”
10 ‘ Your mother was like a vine in your bloodline, planted by the waters, Fruitful and full of branches Because of many waters.”
‘ Your mother was like a vine in your bloodline, planted by the waters’ is referring back to chapter 16. It appears our Holy Loving Lord’s thoughts still are focusing on the betrayal of His Love. Israel started out from a humble beginning. The Lord Picked them as His elect. They prospered as a fruitful vine more than any other nation. Then the People forsook their Holy and Ever Living God for worthless idols. Our heartbroken Lord and Savior Is Lamenting over His lost love.
“11 She had strong branches for scepters of rulers. She towered in stature above the thick branches, and was seen in her height amid the dense foliage. 12 But she was plucked up in fury, She was cast down to the ground, And the east wind dried her fruit. Her strong branches were broken and withered; the fire consumed them. 13 And now she is planted in the wilderness, In a dry and thirsty land. 14 Fire has come out from a rod of her branches And devoured her fruit, So that she has no strong branch— a scepter for ruling.’” This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.”
As you know, God started out the dynasty of kings due to His Love for David. Generation after generation his offspring did not have the same devotional heart toward God. The strong rods of ruler ship withered, broke off, and were consumed by conquerors [fire]. Ultimately, there was no king left on the throne. This didn’t stop God from continuing to know who should be ruling because in the Gospel of Matthew He spells out who should be on the throne of Israel – Our Lord Jesus Christ.
‘This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.” All that remained was a funeral eulogy in memory of a loving relationship that had died.
